Fangirliness

A fangirl (or fanboy) is someone who has gone beyond fandom and is obsessed with a celebrity or character.  It's manifested mostly in teenagers.  Somehow, I missed that rite of passage and am going through it now.

I think everyone has something from their teenage (or younger) years that they or their friends were obsessed with.  The first thing that comes to mind for me is the way all the girls fawned over New Kids on the Block.  I remember playing with my friends where each one had picked a member of the group and we were playing that we were out on a date with them.  I didn't understand the obsession at the time (not that I didn't play along).

Instead, I started looking for my own celebrity beau, someone I at least had some attraction to.  At that point, there was a new TV show called SeaQuest DSV, a sci-fi flick that takes place on a submarine.  One of the crew members was a genius teenage kid who had invented a device that allowed people to communicate with dolphins.  That character was played by Jonathan Brandis.

I followed my friends' example and then some, plastering Jonathan Brandis posters all over my locker and my bedroom wall.  This is the first time I'm admitting this: I wasn't that into him.  Sure, he was cute, and I was a fan, but I wasn't the fangirl that I had made myself out to be.  This was in middle school, and at the time I 'liked' two boys, so I used collecting Jonathan Brandis posters as an outlet, he was a "safe" crush.

Over the years, I've been a fan of many things, but I never really would've called myself a fangirl.  And even now, when I describe myself as a fangirl, I'm referring more to my obsession with something than to the way I act.  I'm not going to act stupid and silly about it, and most people won't know, perhaps maybe with the exception that I mention these things in conversation a little more than what's normal.

What makes me describe myself as a fangirl is all the things that go on in my head.  I'll find myself thinking about it in the middle of the work day.  It turns me into a daydreamer, where I've found myself staring into space thinking about it.  I can't wait to get home to indulge in whatever form the obsession takes.  I want to say it's like love or lust, but really, it's like an addiction.

My fangirldom started with Gideon Emery.  Brian had picked up Final Fantasy XII for himself, but after watching him play for a while, I had to start my own game.  At the time, I thought I just liked the game, that's not too unusual.  But during my lunch break, I found myself looking up clips from the game to hear Balthier's voice.  From there, it led to looking up the voice actor, his own YouTube videos, a CD of songs he recorded, all of his screen work, etc.  I was hooked, a fangirl, even before he responded to my fan mail.  In every fangirl's head, she's created an image of what her obsession is really like.  I found out that Gideon Emery was nicer and more courteous than I even imagined.  I'm now a lifelong fangirl.  Considering I blog about my dreams, and it's inevitable that my favorite actor would come up in my dreams, I've blogged about him a little bit.

My other fangirldom is two-fold.  It's safe to say I'm a Doctor Who fan, and I have been since I saw my first Doctor Who episode (a Tom Baker one on PBS in the 80's).  Thanks to the new Doctor Who, my obsession has been renewed.  I hesitate to call myself a Doctor Who fangirl because I'm not as obsessed with the show as much as I could have been, I guess.  But I really should call myself a fangirl, I do have the theme as my ringtone and "EXTERMINATE" as my message tone on my cell (which scares the bejeezus out of me when it goes off in my nice quiet office, which is hilarious).  And I went through all the episodes that Netflix has streaming, watching on average 5 a week.

So sure, one episode a night isn't too bad.  That is, unless Captain Jack Harkness was in it, then it was much more likely I would miss sleep to watch "just one more episode."  And after I devoured all the Doctor Who, I moved on to Torchwood.  Torchwood is good, but admittedly, not as good as Doctor Who.  But oh, Captain Jack Harkness!  And then it happened again, I googled John Barrowman.  I've looked all through his site, and I still go back, thinking I might have-- hoping that I missed something.  I'm following @Team_Barrowman on Twitter.  I hear all about his UK and BBC appearances, and the Atlantic Ocean breaks my heart a little each time.

And of course, the clincher is that I dreamed about him last night.  The dream itself has faded, but it was a pleasant one.  I know I'm now one of thousands (fangirls and fanboys), but I think it's fair to say that I'm now a John Barrowman fangirl.

Why am I getting these celebrity addictions now?  I'm sure plenty of people would say there are worst things to be addicted to; at least I don't do drugs or smoke.  But I'm still not used to this.  The only other thing that has affected me this way is being in love with my husband.  In fact, I wondered if this was some form of unrequited love, or simply lust, but honestly, I think addiction is a better term.